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Intel Open-Sources Broadwell GPU Driver; Graphics Look Amazing

While Intel's Broadwell processors won't be launching until 2014 as the successor to Haswell, this weekend the initial open-source Linux GPU kernel driver was published ahead of the Linux 3.13 kernel merge window. The changes are massive and it's looking like the Broadwell graphics improvements will be astonishing and provide significant improvements over Haswell and earlier generations of Intel graphics.

Intel is showing everyone else in the industry (including the ARM graphics developers) the right way to do graphics in an open source ecosystem like Linux. You build a team and you build the technology up in the open with real support. I know that Intel's IGPs aren't as fast as a 200 watt discrete GPU, but they have gotten massively better in a pretty short amount of time, and in the mobile space... where Intel really pushes its IGPs, Broadwell is going to be an extremely impressive solution for graphics in a reasonable power budget. When I don't need high-end GPU horsepower I'm already in the Intel camp, and Broadwell will be a nice step up!

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Intel is showing everyone else in the industry (including the ARM graphics developers) the right way to do graphics in an open source ecosystem like Linux. You build a team and you build the technology up in the open with real support. I know that Intel's IGPs aren't as fast as a 200 watt discrete GPU, but they have gotten massively better in a pretty short amount of time, and in the mobile space... where Intel really pushes its IGPs, Broadwell is going to be an extremely impressive solution for graphics in a reasonable power budget. When I don't need high-end GPU horsepower I'm already in the Intel camp, and Broadwell will be a nice step up!

If you want to compare progress based on a time frame, AMD is doing far better. The performance/feature gap for intel's open source drivers is incredibly small. But, when you consider the following about intel:
* They have been supporting linux for at least 10 years
* They have a relatively large team (far bigger than any other open source GPU team)
* A team that probably has the best paid employees
* Their GPUs are of the simplest OpenGL compatible that are x86-oriented
* Exposure to detailed documentation well in advance
I'd say their development rate isn't nearly as impressive as AMD's. On the other hand, Intel does develop a lot more than just drivers - they are contributors to things like Mesa and Wayland, which is also highly appreciated.

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What I would like to see for the next generation is a price drop... a significant price drop.

Do away with the celeron/pentium lines and make i3 truly a budget cpu.

Problem with intel is they have no competition in the laptop/desktop arena and believe they can dictate prices as they see fit, ergo you take a stroll in media markt or fnac and the tablet aisle is getting bigger and bigger and the laptop aisle smaller...

not only that am I the only one noticing that the haswell laptops are few and count for no more than 15% of laptops in stock... you even see sandy bridge laptops on sale like OEM's are trying to get rid of old stock and bail